> Reining in the fossil fuel purveyors will probably require revoking their social license, as we did in the past with tobacco companies and with firms that did business in apartheid South Africa. Until oil companies decide to stop blocking change in Washington and other world capitals and start turning themselves from fossil fuel companies into energy companies, their favored status — with its tax breaks and other perks — should be revoked.
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> All of us, clearly, help fuel global warming. But we don't always have the choice not to because we live in a world with highways instead of trains and subsidized oil instead of subsidized solar power. We can make changes in our personal lives, but until we can break the power of the fossil fuel industry, it's useless to expect our leaders to act. The 20-year bipartisan resistance in Washington to making real progress on climate is the ultimate proof of the industry's power.